Conventional document production environments are organized in a fashion that is functionally independent of print job complexity, print job mix, and total volume of print jobs. Methods of partitioning a manufacturing environment into cells are known, and typically, related production equipment is grouped together. Typically, related equipment is grouped together. Thus, all printing equipment is grouped and located in a single locale. Similarly, all finishing equipment is grouped and located in a single locale. In other words, conventional document production environments organize resources into separate departments, where each department corresponds to a type of process or operation that is performed to complete a print job.
When a print job arrives from a customer, the print job sequentially passes through each department. Once the print job is completely processed by a first department, the print job gets queued for the next department. This approach continues until the print job is completed. Unfortunately, this conventional approach leads to significant time delays and increased work-in-progress and inventory costs.